Musings on the Most Ridiculous Band I Can't Stop Listening To

This is Keith Richard Godchaux; it is his birthday today, and he doesn’t show up around here very much. Just a sleepy punchline most of the time, I’m sorry to say, but there’s nothing to hang a character on: he did no interviews and his physical presence on shows caught on camera gives little of his personality away. (When he made it into the film, that is: he’s almost completely absent from Sunshine Daydream and the Beat Club footage, but he does get some nice shots in The Grateful Dead Movie.) I don’t know if I’ve ever heard his speaking voice. He died in 1980, which is the past but not that past, and nothing remains.

Did they call you Keith, Keith? Godchaux? Cho-Cho? Frenchy? What was your favorite candy? Did you go to church? What was your best subject in school? Did you write Mrs. Donna Jean letters? What did you think about lacrosse?

The rest of them are easy studies, Keith; who the hell were you?

Also: a studio apartment the size of Keith’s forehead rents for five grand a month in San Francisco nowadays.